Horror games to anticipate with dread in 2016

2016 has already given us some great horror titles, like the remakes of the beloved original Resident Evil games, continuations of series such as Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, and original titles such as Layers of Fear. There’s still plenty of year left in 2016, and that means lots more games will be released, including horror games.

But which ones are worth your attention, which ones are pushing the genre, and most importantly, when are they available? Take a look below at some of the titles that are definitely worth further investigation.

Allison Road

Allison Road, by Lilith Ltd, has been getting a lot of attention since the cancellation of Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro’s Silent Hills project. What we’ve seen of the game so far is certainly reminiscent of the infamous ‘P.T.’ Demo for Silent Hills. Players investigate a seemingly abandoned house in first person while trying to stay alive, sane, and figure out exactly what’s been going on as you piece together the game’s plot.

The game looks amazing, with a very photo-realistic aesthetic, and while gradually amping up the atmosphere it manages to look unsettling, and outright disgusting in places. To date, a 13-minute pre-alpha demo video has been revealed for the project.

Allison Road is currently slated for a release in “Q3 2016”, according to the game’s official site, and will be launching on PC, OS X and Linux – with an Xbox and Playstation release “in the works”.

Outlast II

Outlast originally launched as a PC exclusive in 2013 and gained massive popularity and critical praise, not only for flooding the Internet with videos of people playing it in the dark and crying like children but also for genuinely being a great first-person horror experience. The game received a PlayStation 4 and Xbox One release in 2014 after its initial success, as well as an expansion on all platforms titled “Outlast: Whistleblower” which was also critically acclaimed.

The game put players in the shoes of a video journalist investigating strange tales in an asylum, while surviving disturbing, and often supernatural threats. The game was made terrifying by the limitations placed on the player. You could only run away or hide from your aggressors, and this made the whole experience one of claustrophobic tension and palpable dread.

Outlast 2’s details are currently being kept close to the developer’s chest, but a brief teaser trailer shows that the game will be releasing in Fall of 2016 for Windows, OS X, Linus, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Outlast 2 also aims to ‘push’ players “to a place where going mad is the sane thing to do.”

Friday the 13th: The Game

Friday the 13th: The Game began life as ‘Summer Camp’, a game heavily inspired by the Friday the 13th horror movie franchise. The game took on the official name and launched a Kickstarter on October 13, 2015, and hit its goal of $700,000 by November 10 2015.

The game has a multiplayer focus, in 1-versus-7 gameplay that sees a team of seven camp counselors, made up of varying horror movie stereotypes, trying to survive Jason’s murderous visit to their camp, with the final player taking on the role of Jason himself.

This is awesome as it allows you to play as Jason for the first time in a long time (Mortal Kombat X doesn’t really count!) and utilize brutal and bloody kills such as curb-stomping, skull tearing and classical machette-based throat cutting in order to hunt down and decimate other players. You can even recreate iconic kills, like the “sleeping bag kill” – earning additional experience for doing so, as well as feeling pretty damn badass!

To top off how awesome this game is shaping up to be; Kane Hodder, who played Jason, is actually involved with the game himself, and reprising the role through motion capture.

The game has had an announcement trailer released online, which you can see below, and is still being strongly backed. The game is scheduled for an October 2016 release.

Narcosis

Narcosis is a VR survival horror title that casts you in the role of an industrial diver stranded on the seafloor. Alone, and with limited oxygen supplies, you have to survive the depths of the sea in order to make it to safety – and there’s not a zombie in sight!

The game seeks to make use of eerie environments, dangerous wildlife, claustrophobia, paranoia, and hallucinations in order to trick and subvert the player’s mind and cause a very personal, psychological, dread in the game.

A massive draw of Narcosis’ brand of horror is going to be in those moments where you’re rushing for oxygen, alone on the sea floor, and you find that you still have to stop and double check what you’re sure was a shadow moving. A great mix of urgency, resource management, curiosity, but also vulnerability.
The game itself looks fantastic, the released screenshots alone convey a sense of isolation and is certainly a unique take on a survival horror experience. Narcosis is a game that is sure to get a lot of attention upon it’s “Spring 2016” release on Oculus Rift, PC and Mac – with console versions coming “later in 2016.”

We Happy Few

The last game in this list, We Happy Few, isn’t strictly a ‘horror’ game, billing itself as a survival title, but the hallmarks of a great horrifying experience are there.

The game is set in a dystopian England in the year 1964, where the population takes a mind-altering drug called ‘Joy’ in order to forget some unmentioned terrible event. As someone who doesn’t take the drug, you have to attempt to blend in with those that do in order to escape the city in which the game takes place. The tension this creates is a massive driving point for the game’s horror elements, so don’t be fooled by the bright colors and cheery citizens – they can become crazed, psychotic, and will even attack the player in relentless, brutal mobs if they even suspect you aren’t “one of them”.

This Orwellian nightmare is certainly a game to keep an eye on, and is sure to be a hit in 2016 – so you won’t want to miss it!

So, there you have it, a list of horror games that are definitely worth your time and attention. What are you looking forward to yourself? Have any of the titles above caught your interest, and what do you think of the selections? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think!

[Editor’s Note: Also look forward to Perception, a game where you play as a young blind woman.]